clauclauclaudia | links and a quiz, but first...

I like this interview meme, and I invite people to interview me! Five questions seems to be the standard. Or if you want to be interviewed, comment here and I shall do my best. I think coming up with interesting questions is the trickier bit, though.

My favorite link today, from McSweeney's: The Fellowship of the Ring, commentary "by" Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

Chomsky: We should examine carefully what's being established here in the prologue. For one, the point is clearly made that the "master ring," the so-called "one ring to rule them all," is actually a rather elaborate justification for preemptive war on Mordor.

...

Zinn: This is absolutely established in the books. Pipe-weed is something all the Hobbits abuse. Gandalf is smoking it constantly. You are correct when you point out that Middle Earth depends on pipe-weed in some crucial sense, but I think you may be overstating its importance. Clearly the war is not based only on the Shire's pipe-weed. Rohan and Gondor's unceasing hunger for war is a larger culprit, I would say.

Fellowship commentary, part 2.

If you prefer your movie devotion more slavish, how about the Raiders of the Lost Ark shot-for-shot remake? You can't see the whole thing, but there's a trailer. Damn. (thanks,